Bangladeshis in Felda?

New arrivals are expected to be brought in to work in plantations just as the government grapples with over million foreign workers who have yet to be legalised.

PETALING JAYA: In the near future, thousands of new Bangladeshis may be brought in to work in Felda (Federal Land Development Authority) plantations.

Tenaganita – a migrant worker NGO – president Irene Fernandez made this claim today, adding that the recruitment of these Bangladeshis may start in June.

“We’ve heard from sources in Bangladesh that sometime this June, there will be a new recruitment taking place, (bringing in) Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia, (to work) particularly in the Felda schemes,” she told reporters at Tenaganita’s office.

Fernandez asked why the government appeared to tolerate this apparent recruitment when it still had one million undocumented workers, many without any work permits, to deal with.

“Our concern here is that we still have one million workers to be regularised (though they have been) registered under the biometric system.”

“Why can’t we provide employment to these one million migrant workers instead of obtaining new recruitment?” she asked.

Citing the Home Ministry, she said that only 379,020 out of the total of 1.3 million undocumented migrant workers had been legalised by the government.

The remaining one million, she said, either had no work permits or had their permits rejected by the Immigration Department.

In June last year, the government started its 6P amnesty programme to register and legalise illegal foreign workers already in the country.

With the large number of workers still not yet settled by the Immigration Department, the Home Ministry has decided to extend its Jan 10 amnesty deadline to April 10.

It is expected that a crackdown against undocumented migrant workers will commence after this date is up.

According to the Home Ministry, 94,856 migrants have been deported back to their home countries thus far.